Regardless of your immigration status, you lot have guaranteed rights under the Constitution. Learn more hither about your rights as an immigrant, and how to express them.

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Woman and child in an immigration rally.

Police enforcement asks about my immigration status

How to reduce risk to yourself

  • Stay calm. Don't run, argue, resist, or obstruct the officer, even if you believe your rights are beingness violated. Keep your hands where law tin can come across them.
  • Don't lie near your status or provide false documents.

Your rights

  • Yous have the right to remain silent and exercise non have to talk over your immigration or citizenship condition with police, immigration agents, or other officials. Annihilation you tell an officeholder can after exist used against you lot in immigration court.
  • If you lot are not a U.S. citizen and an immigration amanuensis requests your immigration papers, y'all must prove them if you lot accept them with you.
  • If an immigration amanuensis asks if they can search you, you have the right to say no. Agents do not have the correct to search yous or your belongings without your consent or probable cause.
  • If you lot're over xviii, carry your papers with you at all times. If yous don't have them, tell the officer that you want to remain silent, or that you desire to consult a lawyer before answering any questions.

What to do in such an run into

  • In some states, yous must provide your name to constabulary enforcement if yous are stopped and told to place yourself. But even if you give your proper name, you lot don't have to answer other questions.
  • If you lot are driving and are pulled over, the officer can require you lot to show your license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance, but you don't have to answer questions about your immigration status.
  • Customs officers tin ask almost your immigration condition when entering or leaving the country. If yous are a lawful permanent resident (LPR) who has maintained your status, you only have to answer questions establishing your identity and permanent residency. Refusal to answer other questions will likely cause delay, but officials may not deny you lot entry into the United States for failure to answer other questions. If you are a not-citizen visa holder, you may be denied entry into the U.S. if you pass up to answer officers' questions.

Additional resources

  • If you need more information, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Immigration Law Heart: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resources Centre
  • American Immigration Lawyers Clan
  • ACLU VIDEO: What to do if stopped by police or ICE

In other languages

  • (Arabic) العَرَبِيَّة‎
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  • (Urdu) اُردُو‎
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I've been stopped by constabulary or ICE

How to reduce risk to yourself

  • Stay calm and exercise not resist or obstruct the agents or officers.
  • Do not lie or requite false documents.
  • Prepare yourself and your family in instance y'all are arrested. Memorize the phone numbers of your family and your lawyer. Make emergency plans if you take children or have medication.

Your rights

  • You take the right to remain silent. If you lot wish to practise that right, say so out loud. (In some states, you may be required to provide your name if asked to identify yourself.)
  • You do not have to consent to a search of yourself or your belongings, only police may pat downwardly your clothing if they suspect a weapon.
  • If you are arrested by police force, you accept the right to a government-appointed lawyer.
  • If you are detained past ICE, you have the right to consult with a lawyer, simply the government is not required to provide one for you. Y'all tin enquire for a list of free or low-cost alternatives.
  • You do non have to answer questions virtually where you were built-in, whether you are a U.S. citizen, or how you entered the country. (Separate rules employ at international borders and airports, and for individuals on sure nonimmigrant visas, including tourists and business travelers.)

What to do if you are arrested or detained

  • Say you wish to remain silent and inquire for a lawyer immediately. Don't requite whatsoever explanations or excuses. Don't say annihilation, sign anything, or brand any decisions without a lawyer.
  • If you have been arrested past police force, you lot have the right to brand a local phone call. The police cannot listen if you telephone call a lawyer.
  • If y'all accept been detained past ICE, yous accept the correct to contact your consulate or have an officeholder inform the consulate of your detention.
  • Remember your immigration number ("A" number) and requite it to your family. It will help family members locate you.
  • Go on a copy of your immigration documents with someone you lot trust.
  • If you are a non-citizen: Ask your lawyer most the effect of a criminal conviction or plea on your immigration condition. Don't hash out your immigration status with anyone but your lawyer. While you are in jail, an immigration agent may visit you. Do non answer questions or sign annihilation before talking to a lawyer. Read all papers fully. If you do not understand or cannot read the papers, tell the officeholder you need an interpreter.

If yous believe your rights were violated

  • Write down everything yous recall, including officers' badges and patrol auto numbers, which agency the officers were from, and whatsoever other details. Become contact information for witnesses.
  • If you're injured, seek medical attending immediately and take photographs of your injuries.
  • File a written complaint with the agency's internal diplomacy segmentation or civilian complaint board. In nearly cases, y'all can file a complaint anonymously if yous wish.

Additional resources

  • If you demand more information, contact your local ACLU chapter.
  • National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Clearing Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association
  • ACLU VIDEO: What to practice if stopped by law or Ice

In other languages

  • (Standard arabic) العَرَبِيَّة‎‎
  • فارسی (Farsi)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • (Urdu) اُردُو‎

Police or Water ice are at my home

How to reduce risk to yourself

  • Stay calm and go along the door closed. Opening the door does not requite them permission to come inside, only it is safer to speak to Ice through the door.

Your rights

  • You lot have the right to remain silent, even if officer has a warrant.
  • Y'all do not take to let police or immigration agents into your home unless they have certain kinds of warrants.
  • If constabulary accept an arrest warrant, they are legally immune to enter the dwelling house of the person on the warrant if they believe that person is inside. But a warrant of removal/deportation (Grade I-205) does not permit officers to enter a dwelling without consent.

What to exercise when the police force or Ice arrive

  • Enquire if they are clearing agents and what they are there for.
  • Ask the agent or officer to prove you a badge or identification through the window or peephole.
  • Ask if they take a warrant signed past a judge. If they say they exercise, ask them to slide it under the door or hold it up to a window then you can inspect it.
  • Don't prevarication or produce any imitation documents. Don't sign annihilation without speaking with a lawyer starting time.
  • Do not open your door unless ICE shows you a judicial search or arrest warrant naming a person in your residence and/or areas to be searched at your accost. If they don't produce a warrant, keep the door airtight. State: "I do not consent to your entry."
  • If agents force their mode in, do not resist. If you wish to exercise your rights, state: "I do not consent to your entry or to your search of these premises. I am exercising my right to remain silent. I wish to speak with a lawyer equally soon equally possible."
  • If you are on probation with a search status, law enforcement is allowed to enter your home.

Additional resource

  • If y'all need more information, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Clearing Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Heart
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association

I need a lawyer

Your rights

  • If you are arrested by the police, you lot accept the right to a government-appointed lawyer, and should ask for one immediately.
  • If arrested, you have the right to a individual telephone call within a reasonable time of your arrest, and law may not heed to the call if information technology is made to a lawyer.
  • If you are detained past ICE or Border Patrol, you have the right to hire a lawyer, but the authorities does not take to provide i for y'all. Ask for a listing of costless or low-cost alternatives.
  • If yous are detained, you have the right to call a lawyer or your family, and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have the right to take your attorney with you at any hearing before an clearing estimate.

Additional resources

  • If you need more data, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • Hither is a list of contact information for legal organizations that assist immigrants.

I've been detained almost the edge past Border Patrol

How to reduce run a risk to yourself

  • Stay calm when interacting with immigration officials. Practice not lie or provide false documents.
  • Never flee from an immigration checkpoint.

Your rights

  • You have the right to remain silent. You can as well tell the agent that you'll only respond questions in the presence of an attorney, no affair your citizenship or immigration status.
  • You exercise not have to answer questions near your immigration status. A limited exception exists for people who have permission to be in the U.Due south. for a specific reason and for a limited amount of time (a "nonimmigrant" on a visa, for example). These individuals are required to provide information about their immigration status if asked.
  • More often than not, a Border Patrol agent cannot detain you lot unless they have "reasonable suspicion"  that you are committing or committed a violation of immigration law or federal law.
  • An immigration officer cannot arrest you without "probable cause." That means the agent must have facts about you that get in likely that y'all are committing, or committed, a violation of clearing law or federal law.
  • At clearing checkpoints, agents do not need whatsoever suspicion to terminate you and ask you lot questions, but their questions should be brief and related to verifying immigration condition. They can also visually inspect your vehicle.

What to expect

  • People who accept entered the U.S. without inspection by an clearing official may exist subject to expedited removal from the U.Southward. based on certain criteria. If you are told that y'all are subject to expedited removal, ask for the stated reason. Also, if yous fearfulness persecution if returned to your country of origin, you should immediately inform the agents of your fear.
  • At border crossings, federal authorities practise not need a warrant or fifty-fifty suspicion of wrongdoing to justify conducting what courts have called a "routine search," such as searching luggage or a vehicle.
  • If an amanuensis asks you for documents, what you need to provide differs depending on your immigration status. U.S. citizens exercise not have to carry proof of citizenship if they are in the U.S. If you have valid immigration documents and are over the age of 18, the law requires that you to carry those documents with you. If you are asked by an immigration agent to produce them, evidence them to the agent. If you are an immigrant without documents, yous tin can decline the officer'due south request, although an amanuensis may so ask yous more than questions.

Additional resources

  • If y'all need more than data, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association

I was stopped past law, Ice, or Border Patrol while in transit

How to reduce risk to yourself

  • Stay calm. Don't run, argue, or obstruct the officer or agent. Proceed your hands raised where they tin can meet them.
  • If you are in a car, pull over in a condom place as quickly as possible. Turn off the engine, turn on the internal calorie-free, open the window office fashion and place your hands on the cycle. Upon request, show police your driver'southward license, registration, and proof of insurance.
  • If you lot are non a U.South. citizen and an clearing agent requests your papers, you lot must show them if yous have them with you. If you are over 18, carry your immigration documents with you at all times. If you do not have immigration papers, say you desire to remain silent.

Your rights
In a car:

  • Drivers and passengers accept the right to remain silent. If you are a passenger, you can ask if you are free to leave. If the officer says yes, calmly leave.
  • If an officer or immigration agent asks to look inside your automobile, you can refuse to consent to the search. Just if police mostly believe that your motorcar contains evidence of a crime, your car can be searched without your consent.
  • In addition to police, Border Patrol conduct "roving patrols" around the interior of the U.S., pulling over motorists. Border Patrol must take reasonable suspicion that the commuter or passengers in the car committed an immigration violation or a federal crime.
  • Any arrest or prolonged stop by Edge Patrol requires probable cause. You may ask the agents about the basis for likely crusade, and they should tell you. In this state of affairs, both the driver and any passengers have the right to remain silent and not answer questions about their immigration status.

On an airplane:

  • A airplane pilot may refuse to fly a rider if he or she reasonably believes that the passenger is a threat to flight safety. A pilot may not, still, question you or reject to permit you on a flight considering of bias based on your religion, race, national origin, gender, ethnicity, or political beliefs.
  • If you believe you are mistakenly on a "no-fly" list, you should review our guidance on No-Wing lists here.

On buses and trains:

  • Border Patrol agents may board buses and trains in the 100-mile border region either at the station or while the bus is on its journey. More than one officer commonly boards the coach, and they volition ask passengers questions about their clearing condition, inquire passengers to show them immigration documents, or both.
  • These questions should be brief and related to verifying i's lawful presence in the U.Southward. You are not required to answer and can simply say you practise non wish to practise so. As ever, you have the right to remain silent.

If y'all believe your rights were violated

  • Write downwards everything you remember, including officers' badges and patrol car numbers, which bureau the officers were from, and whatever other details. Get contact information from witnesses.
  • If you're injured, seek medical attention immediately and take photographs of your injuries.
  • File a written complaint with the bureau'due south internal affairs division or noncombatant complaint board. In about cases, yous can file a complaint anonymously.

Boosted resources

  • If you need more information, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • American Immigration Lawyers Clan

I am detained while my clearing instance is underway

I've been arrested and demand to challenge a deportation social club

Your rights

  • Y'all have the right to a hearing to challenge a deportation club, unless you waive your right to a hearing, sign something called a "Stipulated Removal Order," or take "voluntary departure."
  • Y'all take the right to an attorney, but the government does not take to provide one for you. Ask for a list of free or low-cost alternatives. If you have no lawyer, inquire the court to permit you time to notice ane.

What to exercise if you are arrested

  • If yous are told that you exercise non have the right to meet an immigration judge, you should speak with a lawyer immediately. In that location are some cases in which a person might not have a right to see an clearing judge. But even if you are told that is your situation, you should inquire to speak to a lawyer immediately because Clearing officers volition not always know or tell you about exceptions might apply to you.
  • If you fearfulness persecution or torture in your domicile country, tell an officer and contact a lawyer immediately. You have additional rights if you have this fearfulness.

Boosted resources

  • If you need more data, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Clearing Law Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Clearing Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association